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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25830538">The World's Last Night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech'>CopperBeech</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sealed With A Kiss [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Bodyswap, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Dining at the Ritz (Good Omens), First Kiss, Holding Hands, Love Confessions, Love Letters, M/M, Post Box Vandalism, Soppy, Sweet, The Night At Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), because it's me and you're gonna get Donne dammit, john donne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:09:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,444</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25830538</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about time bombs is that their only purpose is to go off.</p><p>The Holy Water ticked away in the safe for fifty years. The letter Crowley wrote after putting it there lasted only a little longer.</p><p> <i>Aziraphale looks up, straightens his arm as if they’re on opposite sides of the gates of Eden and the mop handle’s a flaming sword, </i>thus far and no further.<i> Crowley’s boot toes skid to a stop just short of the damp spot.</i></p><p>  <i>“Better not open that, we don’t know what’s in it – “</i></p><p>  <i>Aziraphale’s eyes don’t leave his. “This is your handwriting.”</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sealed With A Kiss [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876633</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>84</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>267</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The World's Last Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriosa/gifts">siriosa</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapheapchallenge/gifts">GayDemonicDisaster (scrapheapchallenge)</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>To siriosa, as Constant a reader as an author could wish for, who was the first to insist that I couldn't leave Crowley's indestructible, unsent love letter just lying there. And to GayDemonicDisaster (who is the bestest Answerer of Comments!) for coming up with the perfect way for Aziraphale to discover it.</p><p>This fic could be read standalone, but really you should start with <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25410130">Please, Mr. Postman</a>. I lost track of the number of commenters who wanted a followup. Hugs to you all.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I miracled away the, ahem, mess, but I’m not taking any chances. Just stay out there till we’re sure everything’s dry.”</p><p>Crowley’s not used to being told where to go in his own flat – not least because no one else has ever been in it with him – but he’s too tired to care, and it’s Aziraphale. He can still feel the angel’s hand in his at Tadfield Airbase, their fingers laced together on the bus (he’s pretty sure Aziraphale thought he was asleep for a good deal longer than he was, and that was fine). He imagines the phantoms of those touches might glow in a dim light.</p><p>Not content with using a miracle to banish the emulsion that was Ligur, Aziraphale’s brought a mop and a second bucket into being and is swabbing down the office doorway as if he’s been doing it all his life – trouser cuffs and sleeves rolled up, jacket over the chair. Crowley reflects on an angel’s life of <em>service.</em> Of course, there are scut demons in Hell whose particular damnation is to mop the dank corridors endlessly, but those never get clean.</p><p>“This isn’t <em>more</em> of the stuff, is it?”</p><p>“What isn’t?”</p><p>“This spray bottle. On the, ah, desk?”</p><p>“Nah, just a bluff. Slowed Hastur down just long enough.” He’s walking through soup, sluggish; the snake in him’s pleading for a long sleep, the one thing he doesn’t dare think about now. He’d already have a glass poured for each of them, but he’s barely able to focus on the idea long enough to get through the steps. Cupboard. Glasses. Counter. Ice. Bottle.</p><p>“It gives me a shiver to think you even had it in here – “ He can hear the splash and trickle of the ordinary water Aziraphale ran from the bath taps into his newly minted bucket. “It always did. Where ever did you keep it? You know, so you didn’t mix it up with something else? Please tell me you were careful.”</p><p>“Oh, no fear. Been in the safe the whole time.” Ice goes in the first glass on the third try.</p><p>“This? Over here?”</p><p>There’s a protracted silence. Or maybe Crowley’s just gone to sleep standing up again for a moment.  One foot in front of the other, you can do it, with a glass in each hand, all the way to the sitting room without collapsing in hopeless coils. Feat.</p><p>“Crowley.” There’s both steel and alarm in the angel’s tone.</p><p>“‘S’m’name – “</p><p>The chill rising up the back of his neck has nothing to do with fatigue, or Heaven, or Hell. <em>Ohshitshitshitshit.</em></p><p>“Crowley. There’s a letter in this safe. Addressed to me. Are we – are you certain someone else hasn’t got into your flat? They know now that we were together there at the airfield – “</p><p>Scotch sloshing over his hand, over the side table, glass clanking down within an ace of breaking. “Angel, don’t look at – I mean, let me see – “ The door of the safe's open as he left it, more urgent things to think about, the Mona Lisa sketch facing the wall. Aziraphale’s standing beside the desk, mop upright in one hand, letter in the other.</p><p><em>The</em> letter.</p><p>The letter he wrote after an angel gave him Holy Water and told him he went too fast. After drinking himself senseless enough to pour out sixty centuries of love and need and desperation onto two sheets of cream-laid paper, signed with the Hellname that meant it could never be destroyed by anything short of the fires of Armageddon.</p><p>Which they’ve just thwarted. A time bomb that’s been tucked away in the safe, beside the Thermos full of demon destruction, for over fifty years.</p><p>As Crowley stumbles to grab it, Aziraphale looks up, straightens his arm as if they’re on opposite sides of the gates of Eden and the mop handle’s a flaming sword, <em>thus far and no further</em>. Crowley’s boot toes skid to a stop just short of the damp spot.</p><p>“Better not open that, we don’t know what’s in it – “</p><p>Aziraphale’s eyes don’t leave his. “This is your handwriting.”</p><p> </p><p>*      *      *</p><p> </p><p><em>Mr. A. Z. Fell<br/>
</em> <em>Bookseller</em><br/>
<em>         k Street<br/>
</em> <em>          DL</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>It’s easier to look at the address on the envelope – partially covered by Aziraphale’s broad, plump thumb – than at the angel’s face or anything else in the room. If his eyes stray to the statue, then Aziraphale’s might too. The lectern. The fucking <em>Museum of Aziraphale</em> that he’s turned his flat into without realizing it.</p><p>At least he hasn’t opened the – almost literally – damned thing.</p><p>“So you were prepared to do it,” the angel says. He’s holding his glass but hasn’t taken a sip from it yet, and the ice chinks randomly as it melts from the heat of his hand and settles.</p><p>“Do what?”</p><p>“Put an end to yourself,” says  Aziraphale in a suddenly higher, shaky tone that skates over the words. “I always wondered if you seriously intended it.”</p><p>“We – ah – “ Crowley drops his face into one hand, also holding his glass with the other, also not drinking. They’re sat on the sofa that’s all planes and angles, a cushion apart like unacquainted people at a party, the chasm opening up again where the bus ride had slotted them together. “We really don’t have time for this conversation right now, angel.”</p><p>“We don’t have time <em>not</em> to have it,” says Aziraphale, and there’s the anger in his tone, the inflection he’d hoped never to hear again, <em>out of the question</em> and <em>we aren't friends</em> and <em>you go too fast</em> <em>. </em>Sitting with a wilderness of cushion between them. “It could be our last. I need to know you won’t lay violent hands on yourself. If –  if things.” Aziraphale, for the first time in recorded history, has run out of words.</p><p>“Don’t think I’ll have the chance, everyone queuein’ up to get there first. “ He manages to get a gulp of the Scotch down. It goes the wrong way and his eyes water, but that at least covers the wobble in his voice. “Please, angel, we’ll talk about it later, we’ve got to think of something.”</p><p>“My point exactly, Crowley. This tells me you’ve already thought of something.”</p><p>“Not that kind of thing.”</p><p>“No? I look at this envelope and I see you dropping it into a post box, before – before using <em>what I gave you</em> to end your own life. As – as a <em>strategy. </em>Or how else was it meant to find me?”</p><p>“Wasn’t like that. Was just somethin’ I wrote down yesterday, I was angry, doesn’t matter now, just chuck it out – “</p><p>“I never thought I’d say this, but you’re a terrible liar, Crowley.”</p><p>“Oh yep. Known for it. Centuries’ve experience, lyin’ like I breathe, terrible. Just not to you.”</p><p>“No. I meant you’re terrible <em>at</em> it. Getting worse by the minute, in fact. This has been here for years. Probably a few decades. I know how ink and paper age, it’s the kind of thing I have to know. The postage is wrong. You were saving it for – what, Crowley?”</p><p>He’s out of answers. Out of places to look. Aziraphale’s expression is unreadable.</p><p>“I think I know what Agnes Nutter meant,” the angel says. “And if I’m right, it won’t matter. But if I’m wrong, I need to know that you won’t – do something desperate. Where there’s life, there’s hope, Crowley. And in – in my case that includes <em>your</em> life. Do you understand me?”</p><p>
  <em>I don’t even like you.</em>
</p><p><em>"</em>Do I need to pour out what's left in that bottle?"</p><p>Tears. Damn. Stupid, human things. They fall to the inside of the dark lenses, putting the whole room underwater.  Full fathom five. All those nights in this flat, blotting the paper and crumpling it and throwing it, always knowing it was safe, knowing the angel would never see it. He pulls the glasses away, drops them where he thinks the end table is, hears them clatter to the slate floor. Never mind.</p><p>“Let me put it another way. Do I want to know what’s in this letter?”</p><p>It’s worse than waiting for the ground to rupture at the airfield, because it’s his safe flat, it’s his <em>angel,</em> and the walls are all breaking down. He gulps the rest of the Scotch, pushes himself off the couch with a sense of physical breach as he moves away from Aziraphale, looks out over the lights of nighttime Mayfair. <em>What if this present were the world’s last night?</em> Old Donne, one of the ones that got away (maybe Crowley’d let him), who’d loved his mistresses and God with the same importuning ardour, hammering the language of reverence and bodily love into one insistent voice. Crowley’d never been one to muse in a window seat with a book of poetry, but something had drawn him to see how the old satyr had died seeming to belong neither Above nor Below, interrogating and exhorting Her until the end.  <em>And can that tongue adjudge thee unto Hell?</em></p><p>“Just read the. Damned. Thing.”</p><p> </p><p>*     *     *</p><p> </p><p>The letter’s short – two pages front and back in Crowley’s jagged, ill-controlled hand, the last page half taken up with his untranslatable, Infernal name – so it’s quite remarkable how a geological age passes while he stands there with his back to the couch. Dawn should be washing over Mayfair and dusk again, seasons, centuries. There’s the ghost of Scotch in the icemelt at the bottom of his glass. He’d like more but doesn’t want to move to get it. If he doesn’t move maybe Time will never resume.</p><p>“I see,” says Aziraphale at last, lowering his reading glasses as Crowley glances back. If his expression was inscrutable, his tone’s even more so. He could be reading the details of a lease.</p><p>“Yeah,” manages Crowley out of a dry throat. Profound, that.</p><p>“You wrote this to me, but you didn’t want to send it. Didn’t want me to read it.”</p><p>“Not after I sobered up. Not as daft as all that. Only I couldn’t just <em>burn </em>it like I did the other ones, ‘cos that’s my real name protecting it. Hellname. Get a new one when you Fall. Works a treat.”</p><p>“Yes. I suspected as much. You rarely see the old script.” There’s a rustle, Aziraphale setting the pages back in order. Then. “Other ones?”</p><p>Crowley thinks of what he saw during the Inquisition, the screws that would tighten slowly, the rack that pulled by degrees. “Wrote loads’ve those,” he says. “I’d get shitfaced and write ’em. Sober up by morning and <em>snap</em>, nothin’ to trouble you with."</p><p>“But this one.“</p><p>"Didn’t. Ah. Couldn’t.”</p><p>Crowley’s infinitely cool chronometer tells him that less than five minutes have passed since he said <em>just read the damned thing.</em> Astonishing how quickly your life can be demolished. Almost as fast as Ligur. “If you don’t wanna see me again after this – after we get through this. I’ll understand.”</p><p>“Crowley. Please come over here and sit down. I can’t keep speaking to your back.”</p><p>He obeys. In the end he always gives the angel what he asks for.</p><p>“Crowley, I’m sorry.” <em>We both come of the same stock but </em>you<em> are Fallen – </em></p><p>“Just leave it – “</p><p>“How harsh I must have seemed. You know what they would have done to us. To you,” and is that a catch in his tone, the angel holding his voice steady, as he's held himself steady for six thousand years, by an act of will?</p><p>“Gonna do it anyway, reckon. Try.”</p><p>“Yes. They may try.”</p><p>Aziraphale holds up the letter as if he’s going to complete Crowley’s incineration by actually <em>reading</em> from it. “I’m glad this couldn’t be destroyed,” he says. “Not least because it gives us the solution.”</p><p>Crowley wonders if he’s supposed to ask.</p><p>“I don’t believe an angel and a demon" -- <em>we have nothing whatsoever in common</em> -- "have ever exchanged their true names before. It’s barely done in Heaven. It’s a matter of boundless trust. A – a bond.”</p><p><em>Damn right, angel,</em> he wants to say, but doesn’t. He hadn’t hoped for even this much kindness.</p><p>“I have your true name now, and in exchange, I will give you mine. I think then we’ll be able to do what we need to do.”</p><p>Crowley decides it sounds like a decent trade. He’s probably lost the angel for good, but saving his life works out to a fair bargain. When Aziraphale’s hand closes over his (was that only an hour ago, on the bus?) he almost jumps.</p><p>“We’ll talk more about the other thing later. I promise.”</p><p><em>The other thing.</em> Crowley closes his eyes, because he has no idea how to meet Aziraphale’s, so that when the angel’s lips touch his lightly, almost reverently, he does jump. It’s an eternity lasting all of two seconds before they withdraw.</p><p>Clearly he’s not the only one who can lark about with Time. Must make a note.</p><p>“Sealed with a kiss, dear. Don’t the young people say that? On letters like this one. I believe there was a song.”</p><p>Astonishing how quickly life can come roaring stupidly back. Definitely some Time issues here.</p><p>“Maybe half a century ago, angel.” Opening his eyes still isn’t an option, but he can’t help smiling. Dear, fusty, unfashionable angel.</p><p>“Then I’m properly behind the times.”</p><p>He presses the letter into Crowley’s hand. “I need to hear you say this.” Crowley’s face must be a study, because when he finally looks up, the angel’s expression is amused and alarmed at once, and he adds, “Just the name, my love. For the moment, at least. Say it for me. That’s who I’ll have to be, and you will have to be me. Let’s try it out.”</p><p> </p><p>*     *     *</p><p> </p><p>“Gabriel’s bloody <em>expression</em>.”</p><p>“I wish I could have seen it. Oh, my dear, and the <em>look</em> Beelzebub gave me. You, I mean. Would that have been Dagon next to her? Him? Them?”</p><p>Crowley’d felt shy, tentative when they met at the convergence of the escalators – all the previous hour’s joyous rage dissolved in the knowledge that it was now <em>later. </em> The <em>other thing.</em></p><p>Storming heaven seemed simple by contrast. Especially when he realized he was trying to read his own face.</p><p>He’d suggested the Ritz to spin it out. (<em>He said </em>my love,<em> but what if he was just being kind?</em> Aziraphale had in him strata of courage and bitchiness and decadence and decency, and you never knew what you were going to get.) It’s easier to order another glass and another, watching the beloved features bloom with delight, <em>I asked Michael for a towel,</em> crumple with laughter: <em>oh, oh, Gabriel really said </em>fu –  (a splutter as he remembers they’re in the dining room of the Ritz and the patrons at the neighboring table are side-eyeing them). Crowley’s told the story three times over, coughed an olive out into his palm saying <em>rubber duck,</em> which has become a hilarious phrase out of all relationship to its meaning and significance. Somehow the entrée plates have been whisked away and Aziraphale’s chosen the desserts, somehow he realizes he’s in the middle of telling how he turned into a serpent and got trapped in the Oxford Circus pillar-box, trying to retrieve that damned, blessed letter. He can’t remember how he began the story. It’s just happening.</p><p>“So that’s how you found out you couldn’t miracle it away? It wasn’t done deliberately.”</p><p>“Angel, I was so f – so trolleyed I c’d barely cross the street <em>deliberately.” </em>It seems perfectly, strangely fine. Aziraphale’s always loved to hear his stories once he's a few glasses in, the escapades that would have meant <em>sternly worded notes</em> from Heaven even when Hell was fresh out of damns, and now he’s enjoying another one.</p><p>“And they actually brought someone from the <em>Zoo?”</em></p><p>“He tried to taxonize – taxonomom – gimme a name.”</p><p>Aziraphale covers a snort-giggle with the damask serviette, offers blurrily, “<em>Ophidius Oxonensis. Pythones Postalis. </em>This rare species has been found sheltering in post boxes, but prefers a garden habitat, and is the only snake known to drink whisky in large quantities.” He wags a didactic forefinger. “Now if we proceed to the next enclosure…”</p><p>“Elusive bugger, mails himself when threatened -- ”</p><p>“Will there be anything else, gentlemen?”</p><p>Aziraphale composes himself to a headshake, still giggling, and as the waiter retreats, gets his breath enough to say “I <em>do </em>believe we’re getting a bit rowdy for the surroundings. Natural reaction, I suppose? Let’s walk and let our lunch settle.”</p><p>“Whatever y’like, angel.”</p><p>“I fancy a turn up to Oxford Circus. I’d like to see the scene of the crime.”</p><p>He slides his hand into Crowley’s as they emerge into the late sunlight, as naturally as if he’s been doing it for thousands of years, and squeezes briefly.</p><p>Crowley squeezes back. <em>The other thing</em>.</p><p> </p><p>*        *        *</p><p> </p><p>“So that’s it. Still here.”</p><p>“Yeah, it’s one of those legacy boxes now. Like Nation’l Trust or summat. Paint ’em black, little bit of dash, like me. Workin’ one’s by the Tube stairs.”</p><p>Foot traffic at the station is light, and no one has a glance to spare for two middle-aged gentlemen standing hand in hand to contemplate the quotidian spectacle of a decommissioned, double-entry pillar box.</p><p>“They don’t put medallions or the like on them? You see them on houses, you know, and … things.”</p><p>“Can’t say, angel. Just the G. R. crown whatsit, far’s I can see.” They were sobering up, but only in relative terms.</p><p>“There really should be something commemorative.”</p><p>Aziraphale snaps. The raised lettering on the post box door becomes the coiled shape of a snake, forked tongue extended. Beneath it, neatly bolted on, appears a credible facsimile of an English Heritage blue plaque, engraved around its elliptical border with white lettering: <em>Scene of the Scandalous Soho Serpent Situation,</em> surrounding the centered date<em> 1967.</em></p><p>“Angel, uh, I think you just vandalized a post box.”</p><p>“I like to think I <em>improved</em> it.” Aziraphale looks up into the dimming sky. “I rather wanted to do a <em>frivolous miracle.</em> Apparently one still can.”</p><p>“Bets they’re up there watchin’ us out those windows?”</p><p>Aziraphale really has been drinking, because without lowering his gaze he lifts a hand with two fingers extended.</p><p>“I don’t suppose I’ll get that view again. I can’t say I’ll really miss it.”</p><p>“Got one back at my place almost as good. And you only have to go up some fire stairs.” Crowley lifts an eyebrow, nods back in the direction of his flat. " 'nless you want to get back to the shop. See that Adam got everything right, like."</p><p>"It can wait, dear."</p><p> </p><p>*      *      *</p><p> </p><p>The lights of London are twinkling on by the time they get up to the roof with the blanket, the bottle of Armagnac, the snifters.</p><p>“Are we actually meant to be up here?”</p><p>“We're abs'lutely <em>not </em>meant t'be up here.”</p><p>“Jolly good then.”</p><p>They sip in silence for a while. The angel’s hand finds his again in the dimness.</p><p>“We really do have to talk,” he says. “Except…”</p><p>Crowley pauses on an inhale. Breath’s not strictly necessary anyway.</p><p>“…it’s not a conversation for an hour, or a day. I’d rather hoped we might take the rest of our lives about it.”</p><p>Dusk is a kind hour, Crowley decides, softening the edges of everything without quite concealing anything. Aziraphale’s hair picks up the last rays of the sun, glowing like a halo. “I’d like that,” he says, trying to sound casual. The accommodating dusk disguises the tremor as he sips.</p><p>"We've got all the time there is."</p><p>"Retired, sort've?" Crowley ventures, thinking of the pensioners he's seen puttering in gardens, passing time together at pubs.</p><p>"Yes. I think the world will get in and out of trouble just fine without us tempting, or blessing." Aziraphale pours himself another tot. "It never needed judgement. Or salvation. It just needed humanity, and Adam managed that without any of our expert help."</p><p>Crowley leans back on one elbow, considers. "Ahhh, we helped a little."</p><p>"And perhaps a bit of simple love." Aziraphale turns toward him. “We’ve both known Divine love. At least, that’s what we’re told it was.”</p><p>“Yeah, ‘n’ that worked out so well.”</p><p>“Just so. I was thinking we ought to do quite well with the Earthly kind. If you'll still have me.”</p><p>The kiss is as gentle as the first, and it’s apology, and absolution, and a question, which Crowley answers silently to the best of his ability. When the angel draws back he utters a name that, until last night, hadn’t been spoken aloud in six thousand years. Crowley replies in kind.</p><p>The angel’s arm is warm around his shoulders as he closes the gap between them, looking back out over the sea of lights.</p><p>“It’s a good enough world. Ours.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I seem to be doing an inordinate number of "first kiss" type fics lately,  but I  suppose no one really hates that.</p><p>If you enjoyed, share, reblog, comment! Come bother me on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech</p></blockquote></div></div>
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